500-plus US facilities could duck emission caps

More than 500 chemical manufacturing facilities, power plants, and metal smelters across the US and Puerto Rico qualify for the US Environmental Protection Agency’s recently publicized exemptions to the Clean Air Act, according to an analysis released on April 7 by the advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). This analysis comes on the heels of a request last month from chemical and oil companies to be exempted from certain federal air pollution limits. The highest number of facilities that could be exempted from a particular rule in EDF’s analysis are 218 chemical manufacturing plants that could apply for an exemption to what’s known as the HON rule . This rule was issued by the Joe Biden administration in 2024 to limit facilities’ emissions of “ air toxics ”—compounds, such as ethylene oxide and chloroprene, known or suspected to cause cancer in humans. Of these plants, 131 are in Louisiana